460 KINSHIP AND ADAPTATION 
systematic importance seem to have nothing whatever to 
do with utility. 
Yet, we know that many organs do serve marvelously 
well the needs of the organism. There is no reason, however, 
why their adaptive features may not have arisen through 
mutations, even without selection, and we have seen that 
initial stages in the development of many an adaptation are 
of so little use that selection could not reasonably be sup- 
posed to act on them. At the same time it is of course not 
impossible in other cases that natural selection may operate 
under certain conditions now and then occurring. Variations 
of the mutative sort would then serve especially well as steps 
in the process of species-making, because of the way in which 
they are inherited, while fluctuating variations might also 
sometimes contribute to the result, provided incompatible 
features did not arise as mutations. For the most part, 
however, selection may now be supposed to play only a 
subordinate role in organic evolution, its effects showing 
chiefly in the maintenance of a certain standard of perfection 
in an established type. A plant grows where it can, and it 
can grow at all only by having the chance, and being fit to 
take advantage of it. When we have said this we have ex- 
pressed about all that it is necessary to admit of the doctrine 
of natural selection. We must remember also that selection 
has at best but a negative value; it cannot originate any- 
thing, it can only favor certain individuals by weeding out 
others. As to mutations, the reader has doubtless already be- 
come aware of their striking likeness to ‘‘special creations.”’ 
If it could be shown that acquired characters may be 
passed over from one mutation to another, we might suppose 
that a direct influence of the environment is instrumental in 
originating species. We know that it does control individual 
peculiarities often in a striking way, and may not improbably 
account for the constant appearance of features sometimes 
attributed to other causes. The great difficulty often is to 
decide which of several possible causes may have brought 
about a given result; and only long continued, careful experi- 
ments can give a satisfactory answer. So far as we may 
judge from such extended observations as those of Dr. Stur- 
